Episode 191

Cargo Cults: Actually a Thing? - Ep 191

First used to describe religious movements that emerged in Melanesia following contact with Allied military personnel in World War II, cargo cults are sects and ritualized behaviors intended to summon outsiders (and their stuff) back and bring about a new age. We’ll explore theories for why they come about, discuss some examples of cargo cults in the traditional definition, and consider what parallels might exist in other cultures.

Interested in learning about how to use X-Rays and similar technology in archaeology? Check out the linked PaleoImaging course from James Elliot!

Connect with James on Twitter: @paleoimaging

Interested in sponsoring this show or podcast ads for your business? Zencastr makes it really easy! Click this message for more info.

Links

Contact

  • Email the Dirt Podcast: thedirtpodcast@gmail.com

ArchPodNet

Affiliates

Next Episode All Episodes Previous Episode

About the Podcast

Show artwork for The Dirt Podcast
The Dirt Podcast
Archaeology, Anthropology, and our shared human past.

Listen for free

About your host

Profile picture for The Dirt Podcast

The Dirt Podcast

As science communicators in anthropology and archaeology, we hosts of The Dirt acknowledge that we hold a position of considerable privilege and opportunity, and commit ourselves to continuous learning, unlearning and reflection. We recognize that our disciplines, as well as our own lives, are rooted in and propped up by settler colonialism, white supremacy, and dispossession.

We now reside on the stolen ancestral territory of the Shawnee and Haudenosaunee and on the lands of the Muscogee and Cherokee Nations, but over its lifetime, The Dirt has also been produced on the unceded traditional territory of the Piscataway Conoy and Cedarville Band of Piscataway Indians, as well as that of the Yocha Dehe Wintun Nation, Patwin and Miwok peoples and all those dispossessed by Cession 296. We offer our show as a platform for Indigenous scholarship, history, and cultural expression, through citation and conversation, and we welcome the opportunity to host and compensate Indigenous scholars of archaeology and anthropology as interview guests.

Likewise, we encourage all listeners who reside in settler-colonial states to learn about on whose land they reside, their place in the ongoing process of colonization, and how to contribute materially to reparations and Indigenous sovereignty.